In the food industry there is a constant demand for the production of additives, whether naturally occuring or synthetic, which are capable of imparting, supplementing or improving the flavor or mouthfeel characteristics of foodstuffs. It is common in some segments of the industry to add flavor agents to enhance or bring out a desirable characteristic in products and by so doing, render the product more desirable from a consumer preference standpoint.
The prior art discloses numerous examples where a bittering agent is added to a foodstuff, particularly a beverage such as a tonic water and/or bitter lemon. The emphasis in these patents tends to be centered on the replacement of quinine which has typically been the agent responsible for producing the bitter taste in soft drinks. Representative of these patents is U.S. Pat. No. 4,296,139 issued to Khan et al. which teaches a method of bittering a foodstuff by adding a new chlorinated sucrose derivitive, 2,6,1' 6'-tetrachloro-2,6,1', 6',-tetradeoxymannosucrose which is utilized as a bittering agent to replace quinine sulphate. U.S. Pat. No. 4,133,903 issued to Thiele et al. teaches the production of a bitter beverage which contains cynaropicrin in a concentration of at least 2.5 milligrams per liter.
The citrus industry has for a long time recognized bitterness as an undesirable flavor property and has sought to develop new breeds of citrus products which were developed to selectively breed out or reduce bitterness. The following 3 patents are of interest in illustrating the desirability of removing bitterness from beverages (U.S. Pat. No. 2,950,974 issued to Smythe et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,031,265 issued to Guadagni et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 4,282,264 issued to Magnolato.) The main bitter agents in citrus products have been identified as being either limonin or the flavanone glycoside, naringin or a combination of the two.